China says 9 suspects killed in Xinjiang raid

BEIJING (AP) — China said nine suspects were killed Friday and another captured in a police action in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang that follows a wave of militant violence.

The official Xinhua News Agency said in a brief report that the confrontation took place in Hotan prefecture in the southern part of the vast region. It described those killed and captured as "terror suspects" but gave no other details.

That followed the murder on Wednesday of a leading pro-government Muslim cleric in the western Xinjiang city of Kashgar. On Monday, the government said militants armed with knives and axes killed or injured dozens of people in Shache county near Kashgar. The official death toll in that attack has not been released.

Xinjiang has experienced rising violence in recent months pitting the authorities against militants from the region's native Muslim Turkic Uighur ethnic group who are seeking to overthrow Chinese rule over their resource-rich homeland. China says the militants are Islamic extremists linked to jihadi groups abroad.